Violet wands and static electricity

Original Author : Roughtrader / Date : 2005-12-17 00:34


If you want to get an argument going, start talking about violet wands and static electricity or current electricity. You'll soon find a line drawn down the center and two opposing groups forming; those who say violet wands produce static electricity, and those that say they do not.

Certainly, the sparks coming off the glass FEEL like static..it doesn't feel like A/C current, that's for sure. And occasionally you'll build up a positive or a negative charge and the hair will either stand up on your arms or the glass of the electrode stick to you.

But static electricity doesn't 'flow', does it? Does vw electricity 'flow' in the same way?

Well, it helps to understand what people might mean by the terms 'static' and 'current' electricity.

STATIC ELECTRICITY:
Electrical happenings which involve HIGH VOLTAGE at low current.

CURRENT ELECTRICITY:
Electrical happenings which involve HIGH CURRENT at low voltage.

Under those very simple definitions, yes, a violet wand could be said to produce static electricity. A violet wand has very low current. However, when people normally talk about static electricity, they mean much much lower current than a violet wand's net charge.

Read this guy's URL; he describes additional definitions in some very simple terms:

What is static electricity? What is current electricity?

Now that you've read it, you can begin to get the idea that electricity doesn't really move. Even the electrons themselves don't move, but the charge along them does.

Yes, the violet wand charge DOES exhibit some properties of certain definitions of static electricity, and it does exhibit some properties of certain definitions of current electricity. So why do we have to separate the two?

These definitions makes it possible to say that the spark arcing from glass to skin is an electrostatic event. A violet wand has very LITTLE current, (less than a milli-amp) so that it is ALMOST able to be classified as the unenlightened traditionally call 'static' electricity.

Now read this article because this explains it better than I ever could...

Electricity map

You'll note a violet wand output of less than a milli-amp and 50,000 volts is a bit 'north' of the same neighborhood as a Van de Graaf, traditionally known as a 'static electricity' producing device. When you're talking static electricity, USUALLY you're talking about micro-amps. Which is well below violet wand current.

But, really...its all electricity. When you are talking about something in-between the two ranges of electromagnetic events (static and current electricity) as a violet wand, the lines become a little blurred...and sometimes difficult to make a sound argument for either. Besides, there is really no such thing as static (no current) electricity. Static means stationary. There's no such thing. There is just very very low current, and sometimes such a low current that it becomes im-balanced where opposing charges build up. If you had NO current at all, you'd have no electrical event to talk about!

The best thing to do is to talk about violet wand output as seamlessly as Mr. William Beatty, the author of these web pages linked here, and call it all Electromagnetism. Rather than saying that violet wands produce 'this' or they produce 'that,' call it by its overall and broader name [and confuse everyone in the process.]

You are the enlightened. Violet wands produce electromagnetic energy.

Tags: Static